Prostate Cancer’s Precision Promise

If you’re a man living in the US today, you have a 1 in 7 chance of being diagnosed with prostate cancer before you die. In other words, you’re more likely to get prostate cancer than to flip a coin and get heads just three times in a row. After skin cancer, it’s the most common cancer to effect men. Few, however, die from the disease. Most of the time, the clumps of cancerous cells on the walnut-shaped prostate are sluggish to grow, and the cancer remains tiny, and localized, for years. In some cases, a doctor might simply recommend waiting to see if the tumor grows before treating it at all. But in a small number of men—some ten percent—this time lag could be deadly. They have a more aggressive, belligerent form of cancer that’s prone to grow and spread.